Abstract
The spread of the COVID-19 epidemic worldwide has led to investigations in various aspects, including the estimation of expected cases. As it helps in identifying the need to deal with cases caused by the pandemic. In this study, we have used artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict the number of cases of COVID-19 in Brazil and Mexico in the upcoming days. Prey predator algorithm (PPA), as a type of metaheuristic algorithm, is used to train the models. The proposed ANN models’ performance has been analyzed by the root mean squared error (RMSE) function and correlation coefficient (R). It is demonstrated that the ANN models have the highest performance in predicting the number of infections (active cases), recoveries, and deaths in Brazil and Mexico. The simulation results of the ANN models show very well predicted values. Percentages of the ANN’s prediction errors with metaheuristic algorithms are significantly lower than traditional monolithic neural networks. The study shows the expected numbers of infections, recoveries, and deaths that Brazil and Mexico will reach daily at the beginning of 2021.
Highlights
COVID-19 pandemic was initially reported in China and quickly affected the entire world, leading to a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization [1,2,3]
In the past two decades, COVID-19 is the third outbreak of corona virus-induced respiratory disease after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) [4,5]
From 5 March 2020, onwards, the number of COVID-19 infected patients increased dramatically, and by 21 March, it has spread to all parts of Brazil
Summary
COVID-19 pandemic was initially reported in China and quickly affected the entire world, leading to a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization [1,2,3]. Some infected people do not show any symptoms [11] of COVID-19; that is why it is impossible to identify the actual number of positive cases in huge populations. The more time it takes to diagnose an infected person, the more he/she becomes risky for others. This work is based on ANNs for the prediction of a time series problem about the investigation of the COVID-19 in Brazil and Mexico [23,24].
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